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The McIntosh Clinic Story

4Play said:
I wonder why McIntosh was the only audio company who held these clinics. It would seem to be the perfect outlet for other companies to provide the same service to their customers. I cannot think of a better way to educate people about their audio gear, and for the customer to appreciate what they have.

Just one reason why McIntosh has become the premier audio gear to own. :music:
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Probably because most other companies would have been embarrassed at how poorly their equipment performed. :D

The primary reason for the Clinics was to provide the public with firsthand evidence as to whose equipment met published spec and whose that did not. McIntosh always did - or could easily be returned to original spec in cases where it didn't by a simple servicing.

Back in those days, amplifier power ratings were haphazard to say the least. Laboratory testing is impartial and was a real boon to McIntosh's credibility in the eyes of the public.
 
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motorstereo said:
In the beginning of the book it's mentioned that a few of them tried something similar but were not successful with their variation. Having your product perform as advertised and fixing it on the spot if it didn't apparently is a claim that not many other companies are able to follow through on. It's amazing to me that Mcintosh was able to this for the 30 years they ran their clinics.
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Well...not quite 30 years.

Complimentary servicing of equipment ended in 1976 mainly due to tube quality that had been suffering and the dying tube industry.

Also the servicing of SS is more labor intensive; it is not practical to service SS equipment while the customer waited.

After 1976, Clinic activity was limited to testing only.
 
4Play said:
I wonder why McIntosh was the only audio company who held these clinics. It would seem to be the perfect outlet for other companies to provide the same service to their customers. I cannot think of a better way to educate people about their audio gear, and for the customer to appreciate what they have.

Just one reason why McIntosh has become the premier audio gear to own. :music:
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When I worked for Rockford Fosgate, I did these very same types of clinics with one of our top engineers. We brought some $30,000 in testing equipment and tested all brands of amplifiers on site. Our amplifiers greatly exceeded published specifications, while others could barely (if at all) meet theirs. These were very effective.

Any idea who inspired me to do these?
 
Sure, you would have to be in NY..... That's great. I hope folks take advantage of your offer, I sure would.
I remember the clinics here in Milwaukee, more accurately, Wauwatosa, WI at Flanner and Hafsoos. I used to watch the techs work at getting the units tested and fixed. I was pretty young, but even then had the Mac bug.
As a side, I purchased O'Brien's book back in October and read it in one sitting. I thought it was awesome. All his stories were very interesting. Although, I felt sad at the end. Something so cool, so nice and it no longer exists. Also, David O'Brien devoted his life to Mac and the clinic. He was one dedicated individual to be sure.
 
damacman said:
When I worked for Rockford Fosgate, I did these very same types of clinics with one of our top engineers. We brought some $30,000 in testing equipment and tested all brands of amplifiers on site. Our amplifiers greatly exceeded published specifications, while others could barely (if at all) meet theirs. These were very effective.

Any idea who inspired me to do these?
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Were those automotive amplifiers you tested or home audio?
 
I only wish Dave O'Brien could or would have been more specific about competing brands and/or units and how they stacked up on the test bench. Perhaps there were defamation concerns - I can only speculate.

Otherwise, it was a very enjoyable read.
 
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I was wishing the same thing. I'd like to know who did good besides Marantz and which brand had a canoe shaped graph that reached up into the customer address.
 
Come to think of it, I don't ever recall seeing a performance graph for non McIntosh floating around today.

Maybe the owners didn't care to hold onto their equipment's bad "report cards"... :D
 
I still have the reports for my C20 from Dave at the Clinics of my youth! At one point the Clinic was at the same Mac dealer where I'd purchased my first Crown amp (D150) and Dave tested it, praising it for exceeding Crown's specifications. Another time he told me he'd have to keep my C20 overnight to bring it up to spec and I think he re-capped the whole thing before retesting it the next day. The only spec he wasn't happy with was the cross-talk between sources which he blamed on the material used in the Military Grade circuit boards "back then".

The cost of re-staging the Clinics would be exacerbated by the cost of vacuum tubes today. Every time my C20 was tested, the first thing Dave did was replace all the tubes, throwing the old ones in the trash, even if he'd just done it the year before! Who wouldn't love to have the contents of that trash can today?
:thmbsp:
 
Somewhere in my archives I think I have the test report for my scratch built SWTPCo Tiger amp. It did very well. I think they also tested my Integral Systems power amp (very obscure) that also did well. Loved the clinics. I think they were done at Craig Audio in Rochester NY.
 
62caddy said:
Come to think of it, I don't ever recall seeing a performance graph for non McIntosh floating around today.

Maybe the owners didn't care to hold onto their equipment's bad "report cards"... :D
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My bud who used to sell Mac gear was telling me some interesting stories about the graphs yesterday. At the time the Sansui 8 was a big seller and the store would keep duplicates of the graphs and post them for customers to see. He claimed the 8's graphs were all over the place; some good, some not so good and some that were real canoes. The Mac's graphs on the other hand were all straight lines. He used to show the 8's graphs to people and tell them there's a stack of 8's all new in their boxes. They're ready for sale and ask if they're feeling lucky in grabbing the lucky one with the straight graph or maybe they'll end up with the canoe graph. He claimed you could see the wheels turning as the customers thought about those graphs. Those few bad report cards added up to a lot of sales for the Mac gear.
 
DOB was a gentleman......even if a customer's unit was a piece of crap he would find something nice to say.....

Many dealers did not want to host clinics, they felt they did not generate sales.....DOB was put under much pressure by these high powered dealers to make the clinics more condemning of older units.
 
Well those dealers clearly did not understand the clinics were to sell people on McIntosh as a brand and not necessarily sell them a new unit ... I wonder how many of them are still in biz today ...
 
The book is a fun read. Davie was a gentleman for sure, but there was a little bit of the devil hidden there, too. He wasn't for dirty jokes but could tell great stories. He enjoyed good food and a great wine. He never said anything really negative about a piece of equipment, but could quote chapter and verse on the general characteristics and short falls. I was always very curious to see a piece of Audio Research or Marantz tube equipment on Davies Bench.

I had the honor of using his bench as my work bench when the clinics were not in operation. We would tear it down and set it up for him for each clinic. We built a second bench so Tom Jr could test equipment, for large turn out clinics. I don't think I ever saw a piece of SOB tube equipment meet Mac specs on the first go around. Marantz would come close and would just squeak by with new tubes. Scott Fisher and Dynaco could be pretty gross. Audio research with its ringing at super high frequencies never met specs and cold really destroy tweeters if pushed. I hope there new stuff fares better.

Davie had a like for Coors Beer. So we would load up his empty insulated tube cases with a couple of six packs to take home with him packed with dry ice.

He loved his Accutron watch with the clear face so you could see all the workings inside. It was always a point of conversation.

He loved to work on MC 30's and 60's and could take one apart and replace offending caps when needed in record time. One time a C-20 came in that hadn't had the rectifier up dated and Davie was very surprised the unit worked at all. Its performance was terribly compromised.

Davie loved to go to a certain steak house here near the border, and would order 2 inch thick NY steaks and eat every last bite. The last time I went to dinner with Davie the main focus of conversation was the take over by Clarion. He also had the test box for the Power Guard Demonstration for the visit. At one clinic I was first on the list with my C-28 and 2100's. He installed the latest updates to lower the IM distortion on the 2100's, installed a shield to lower the crosstalk on the phono section, realigned the input selector switch, rebuilt the low level input connector mounting plate, installed a hand selected Volume control and cleaned all the controls. When I had 275's it seem the miniature tubes were always the culprit and needing to be replaced. With the 240 and MA 230 it was always the outputs. The MC 60's and 30's it was always the rectifiers first and then the miniatures, followed by the KT88's.
 
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